


La Chaleur

by Hedge_witch



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
Genre: Excessive Heat, Gen, Max's usual case of the unrequiteds, Mentions of Saint-Just, hinted Camille/Danton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedge_witch/pseuds/Hedge_witch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Academic AU, Oxford swelters and the trio attempt various methods of keeping themselves (particularly their tempers) cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Chaleur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oubliance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oubliance/gifts).



> This is another fic based in the Academic AU, you don't necessarily need to read my other fic in this universe or oubliance's works, but I would heartily recommend the latter. 
> 
> The existence and nature of Marat's possible skin condition, and his resultant propensity for regular baths, is a matter for debate. It has been mooted that he suffered from Dermatitis herpetiformis. As this is a treatable condition in terms of modern medicine I have chosen to make Marat's bathing habits a personal affectation rather than a necessary way of treating his condition. I feel the need to point this out as several characters in this fic speculate rather flippantly about Marat's ever-present bathtub, which they certainly would not do were he using it to treat an illness. 
> 
> Speaking of flippancy, I intend no insult to Aberystwyth University and I am heartily sorry for inflicting the Marquis de Sade upon them.

“There,” Danton said, tossing the bags down on the table, “the last three hand-fans in Oxford. I hope you enjoy them, I had to cut up an elderly don in Boswells in order to secure them. I’ll bet you the last bag of ice in the supermarket that he’s going to be sitting on my next funding committee.”

 

“That was very noble of you dearest,” Camille absentmindedly replied, scrabbling earnestly through the bag, “but I dispute your use of the word ‘enjoy’. That implies that these fans are mere luxuries, and not actually necessary for our continued existence.” 

 

That week, the thermometer had barely slipped below thirty degrees, even in the depths of the night, and Oxford, landlocked and cut off from all breezes, was sallow with it. Term had long passed and the lassitude that always draped over the summer was even more marked. PhD candidates wilted at their desks, trying to conjure up pretexts to request a travel grant to conduct research in Stockholm or Reykjavik. In the evenings they sloped off to meet with increasingly vague dons, who received them with their feet floating in basins of iced water and who barely remembered their names, let alone the details of their research. As for the junior members of the Classics faculty, charged with the  unwelcome task of organising the October conference, they sat in Max’s flat (by general agreement colder than Danton’s, Camille’s mysterious and potentially parlous accommodation wasn’t even considered as a venue) and drew straws to determine who would brave the streets in search of cool drinks and medication. 

 

It was strange, Danton mused, how the sepia filter of his sunglasses could make everything look of a warm golden piece, even Camille, wearing a sarong and a lime-green crop top, was a harmonious, rather than a jarring element when thus gilded. The picture was completed by Max, who had responded to the weather by adopting the dress and mannerisms of a frustrated colonial administrator determined to keep up appearances, glaring out from beneath his panama hat and constantly adjusting the creases of his linen trousers.  

 

“Why do you keep getting plastic bags!” Max said fretfully, “I’ve told you multiple times that I have loads of reusable ones. They Are In The Cupboard Under The Sink.” 

 

Danton shrugged, “well its not as though you can’t use these for Brount.”

 

Max readied himself to reply, but at the sound of his name, Brount, who was sprawled out over the comparatively cool kitchen floor, whined softly and lethargically thumped his tail. This served to deflect Max over to the freezer, where he took out a tray, crouching down in front of the supine dog and carefully feeding him several lumps of ice from it. 

 

“Don’t you want to add a wedge of lime and a cocktail umbrella to that?” Danton jested, raising his eyebrows as Camille poked him in the side and shot him an admonishing look. 

 

“Would you like to try wearing a fur-coat in this heat?” Max replied, rather acerbically.

 

“Fair enough,” Danton said, handing Max one of the bags as a peace-offering. “Here, I braved the ‘food trends I read about in a Sunday supplement’ aisle and got you your coconut water, along with a metric ton of aloe vera gel. 

 

“It’s known to be especially hydrating, I showed you that article, but thank you all the same,” Max said, grabbing the latter item with particular enthusiasm, before rolling up the sleeves of his  polo shirt and hastily applying it to the angry pink burns on his arms. 

 

Danton shook his head, “I still can’t believe you got burned that quickly, you were only out in the sun for five minutes!”

 

“That’s all it takes,” Camille said; who, Danton noticed, had begun to go a nice shade of brown, “don’t you remember that conference in Carcassonne?”

 

“Oh yeah,” Danton replied, the memory resurfacing. He smirked at Max, “didn’t that debacle happen because you were pretending that you’d already put sun-cream on in order to stop Saint-Just offering to ‘do your back’?” 

 

Max winced at the memory, “yes that was...rather awkward.”

 

Camille frowned, “it was a little more than awkward, we had to take you to hospital.” His wide, mobile mouth thinned into a grim line, as he evidently added that crime to Saint-Just’s long list of misdemeanors. 

 

Sensing that Camille was contemplating indulging in his favoured hobby of sending long and abusive texts to Saint-Just, Danton decided to head him off at the pass with a bottle of Rose Lemonade. “And here’s another one from the aisle of pretension, along with enough benadryl to fell a horse, and,” he pulled out a four-pack of San Miguel, “lager for this heathen. And don’t start getting your knickers in a twist Max, if you’re still maintaining the illusion that we’re getting any significant work done today then you’re probably suffering the effects of heatstroke .” 

 

Max sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose, “shall we at least try and get a rough idea of who to approach for papers by the end of the day? I had hoped for a finalised list but I now see that this was hubris of Icarian dimensions.” 

 

Danton cracked open his beer and turned one of the fans towards his face. “Well, we’ll present of course.”

 

“And hubris speaks,” Camille smirked, grinning and ducking away from Danton’s lazy swipe. 

 

“Yes, well that’s a reasonable assumption. I suppose we can also bank on Mirabeau, do you think that Laclos has enough research completed on his latest to give a keynote?”

 

Danton snorted, “he ought to have, the amount of funding he managed to wrangle out of the Orleans foundation. Well there’s Lafayette for the old guard, Fabre’s always good for some fireworks, we definitely need Louise Robert to add to the literary angle, and then I suppose we’ll have to decide if we’re inviting Suleau or Anne.”

 

“Suleau,” Camille said decisively, “Anne’s last hatchet job on him was a mess, also, she stole my velvet jacket after the conference dinner in Cambridge.” 

 

Danton shrugged, “so get it back from her this time, or nick one of her bizarre hats in recompense. You do realise that if we don’t invite her we’re going to have to call Saint-Just.” 

 

“What! Why?” Camille struggled to muster an appearance of outrage from where he was slumped over the kitchen counter, “he’s a charlatan!”

 

“We need someone to give a paper on gender identities,” Max pointed out, “and unless your work on Ovid has progressed very far, if we exclude Anne, Antoine is the only person able to do so at the moment.”

 

“He’s only working on the subject because it’s _fashionable,”_ Camille sneered, “and it’s not as though his treatment of the subject is at all scholarly. He’ll have some completely banal conclusion, but he’ll scatter enough pseudo-controversial statements around to distract everyone from the holes in his research.”

 

“Alright,” Danton said soothingly, “for the sake of achieving a certain level of harmony at this conference and in the interests of our collective blood-pressure we’ll try and avoid getting him to present if we can.”

 

“Hmmm.” Evidently dissatisfied, Camille shifted across the worktop and half-climbed out of the window, catching a faint, struggling waft of air on his face. This done, he poked his head back inside, “we need a contrarian.”

 

“Marat,” Max and Danton said as one. 

 

Bourne upon one of the quick shifting currents of his thought, Camille grinned, “do you suppose this is why he decided to take up residence in his bathtub?” 

 

“I assume we’re still talking about Marat,” Danton remarked.

 

“This?” Max enquired

 

“This,” Camille said, drawing all dry-buzzing Oxford in with the sweep of his hand, “this intolerable calidity, this fever of the air,” he blew a kiss down at Brount, “these dog-days. Do you think that, in the summer of 76 perhaps, a young Marat...”

 

“Is he that old?” Danton enquired.

 

“He has defeated time,” Camille continued, “our young Marat, after suffocating down in the archives, sweating for hours over some arcane tome in Duke Humfrey’s...”

 

“You have lost me there I’m afraid,” Max interjected, “I can’t imagine Marat in a sweat, unless you mean to suggest that he did a lifetime’s worth of perspiring in this heatwave of his youth.”

 

“Precisely!” Camille cried, “eventually he dried out like a lizard! And in despair he took to his bath and found it such a blessed relief that he has not left it since!” He paused, arrested by the thought, “it’s not a bad idea after all,” he murmured, “perhaps I will emulate him.”

 

“No,” said Max dryly, “here I must intervene, if you acquire one more eccentricity I fear the faculty will run mad. Laclos gets a glazed, furious expression on his face whenever I mention your name as it is, if you go any further you’ll end up like de Sade.”

 

Danton gave a mock-shudder, “last I heard he’d managed to get a position at Aberyswyth.”

 

“Then I weep for the fate of Wales,” Max said, his eyes containing that curious glimmer that emerged when he was aware that he was amusing Camille and was grasping at ways to carry on doing so. He turned to Danton blindly, his attention still with Camille, “please, help me nip this in the bud, tell him you find him unbecoming in the bath if necessary.”

 

“I would never perjure myself in that manner,” Danton said lightly. 

 

‘Well, you asked for it,’ he thought, as he saw a flush that had nothing to do with the sun rise beneath Max’s skin, before he collected himself and carefully folded his face back into inscrutability. 

 

Max looked away and a breath of silence lengthened into a sigh. Danton took a sip of his beer, grimacing as he found that it had become warm and unpalatable. He arched his neck over the back of his chair to look at Camille, who was perched once more upon the worktop, sneering down at Max’s laptop. 

 

Catching Danton’s gaze, he turned the screen towards him, “have you seen this? Maybe we won’t have to worry about inviting Saint-Just to the conference after all, it seems that he’s busy disporting himself along the Amalfi Coast.”

 

“Oh god,” Danton moaned, “this finally proves the non-existence of natural justice, here I sit, a decent, hard-working scholar who could handle this heat so much better if he were in Italy, and that little shit is the one sipping Campari and dipping his toes into the Mediterranean. How on earth did he manage to wrangle that?”

 

“Apparently he’s on sabbatical and he’s over there researching, though if all these pictures he’s put up are any guide, it doesn’t look as though he’s spending all day in the archives.” He waved the laptop in Max’s direction, “have you seen this?”

 

“Yes,” Max gave a puzzled frown, “I’m not sure if there’s some arcane Facebook etiquette that I am unaware of, but for some reason he keeps tagging me in the photos of him on the beach, just those, not the ones of Pompeii, which would make much more sense. I’ve had so many notifications... Are you alright Danton? You appear to be choking.”

 

“Tried to swallow at the wrong time,” Danton gasped, valiantly trying to keep his face under control, “that’s very strange indeed.” He glanced over at Camille, whose hands were white around the laptop and whose sneer had suddenly grown teeth. “Oh god, this heat makes madmen of us all. Come on Max, put down the conference plans and lets go throw that dog of yours into the Isis, it’ll do him the world of good. Maybe we should send Camille’s phone in after him, I know he’s got contacts in Salerno and he might actually put out a hit on Saint-Just this time, god knows the lengths archivists will go to in order to supplement their salaries.” 

 

“I think if anyone’s affected by the heat it’s you, as I have no idea what you are talking about,” Max replied primly, though he pulled on his sandals and fished out Brount’s lead nonetheless. “Oh come on Camille, don’t sulk, we’ll carry on later when it gets a bit cooler.”

 

Danton winced and covertly texted Lucille, who could be decently relied upon to have a bottle of white rum on her person and to be able to derail the evening enough to ensure that work would have to be put off until the morrow, and the day after that too, if this heat refused to lift. 

 


End file.
